Day 4 was fairly uneventful as we had a fussy baby who was teething and who was spitting up a lot. We decided not to go on the tour with the rest of the group and just hang out around the hotel. We headed over to Tiffani’s to pick up Nadia’s clean laundry and to get some more Diet Coke. In Nanchang we have been having our laundry done by the Elephant King and they really do a great job. Our clothes come back clean and pressed and they smell very good. I recommend them as they pick up and drop off at your hotel.
For dinner we met with a bunch of the other families in the “play room” at the Jin Feng (note – it’s just a big room with seats around the edge and 2 plastic horses) for a pizza party. It was fun to have the babies check each other out and for the parents to have a chance to compare notes. It was also good for the older siblings to be able to play together and burn off some of their energy. They are all doing really great and seem to be enjoying the adventure to their new baby sisters. After dinner we headed back to our room for more play time with Nadia.
She just laughs and babbles to us constantly now. The giant smile of hers when she laughs is enough to melt my heart. And she is getting used to being kissed now and when she sees me coming at her, she moves her head towards me to let me kiss her. She really thinks that I am silly and I sing songs to her and goof off and she just laughs and laughs. More than anything she wants to be held by Mike and in position to watch whatever I am doing. She likes to know that we are both there. More often than not, she wants Mike to rock her to sleep. She doesn’t really want any part of Mommy putting her to sleep, but that’s okay because Daddy and daughter are so cute together.
An interesting thing that happened to me in the morning was that I went down for breakfast by myself while Mike took care of Nadia. As I was riding down in the elevator, there was a nicely dressed woman who was my age and she asked me if I was from America. I said yes and she said where? I said from Texas and she said, “Oh, like your shirt.” Then she asked me why I was in China and I told her we were here to adopt. She asked me what that meant and I explained it all to her. She said she had never heard of that and didn’t know that her county adopted about babies. She asked if she could sit with me and talk at breakfast and she was really interested in everything. She said that our baby was lucky because the Chinese don’t care about girls and that they only want boys, so she was going to have a better life. It was really sweet. She told me at the end that she wanted to exchange emails so she could see the baby and that maybe she should adopt one of the abandoned babies from her country. It was a really cool conversation.
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Full Day #5
Nadia was up at 10 pm, 12 am and 4 am once again overnight. She likes a bottle at 4 am and to play with Mommy and Daddy some more. We got up and tried to go down for breakfast together. Nadia started to spit up again all over Mike and then she knocked his plate off the table. So Mike was covered in syrup from his pancakes. He had his crocs on and it went through the holes. 🙂 So back to the room we went so Mike could change clothes since she managed to completely dirty him up. Our guide Michael was going to take everyone to the porcelain shop near the hotel. Mike decided to stay back with Nadia and told me to buy whatever I wanted.
Jiangxi province is the birthplace of porcelain and the hand painted items are so amazing. I really had a good time shopping in there and looking at all the ornate items that they had for sale. Our guide told us that this was one of the stores that had certified items and they place was very nice and the staff was very friendly. The walk over there was interesting and I got a bunch of photos on my way back. This was more traditional inside the city China living. The people with food stands and men picking up trash on their bikes. Men playing cards in smoky little restaurants. We got a ton of really curious looks. On the way back the Hatchers had bags of Smarties candies and they were handing them out to all the kids along the way. The kids didn’t open them in front of the Hatchers, but I was dragging behind taking photos and got to see the kids all excited eating the candies and showing them to their moms. It was really cute and I was glad that I could tell the Hatchers that the Chinese children really loved their candy.
I went back to the hotel and by then Mike had done a ton of research on baby spit up and we changed tactics for her feedings and things seem to be much better now. I showed Mike all the cool stuff I got at the porcelain shop and we decided to go back and pick up one more thing for Nadia for when she is older. I wasn’t sure and I wanted Mike to see it first. Then we went over to the little baby store close to the hotel to pick up a couple different pacifiers and some teething husks because Nadia is trying to chew everything in sight up. We tried the pacifiers and Nadia wasn’t having any part of it, so we are just letting her chew her fingers and our fingers. She does seem to like the teething husks, but they are messy!!
We got back to the hotel and we had to book it to get all of our stuff packed and ready to set out by 2:30 pm to be taken to the airport. Our laundry came back at 1:30 and we finished as they were knocking on the door. We had to be checked out and ready to leave by 3:30, so we got our carry on situated and headed down to the lobby. All the families were on the bus and we headed for the airport to take our flight from Nanchang to GZ. It was a long and bumpy road back to the airport and I was glad that we didn’t have to contend with our luggage too.
We got checked in and went through security and they took my scissors and made me taste the water that we had to make the baby bottles with. We got on the flight and we were getting some serious stares from all the Chinese on board. We of course seemed to hold everything up – Americans with babies can’t seem to move as fast as the Chinese getting on and off planes. The flight was about an hour and a half and they gave us these awesome milk cookies and we got extra packages from the flight attendant who was flirting with Nadia.
Nadia DID NOT like the flight. She just became inconsolable and Mike had to get up and stand in the aisle rocking back and forth. Most of the babies cried uncontrollably at some point during the flight. I am trying not to think about the 12 hour flight home, but at least we will be with 3 other Great Wall Families instead of being alone. It took about an hour by bus to get to the hotel. Once there we were behind another large group on adoptive families checking in so the wait took a while. Our guide Michael got to the desk and he called our names and one other families names and told us to head to the 22nd floor to check in. We had decided to upgrade to the Executive Level, so we got a private check in. It was worth it to just be able to get in our room. But the room is swank and huge. We have a very large sitting area, a powder bath, the bedroom and a very big master bath room.
We got Nadia in the room and stripped down to her diaper and she became a different child. She was the happiest, smile filled and laughing girl! She played climbing all around Daddy on the bed for at least 45 minutes. We ordered room service and she was trying so hard to get to the french fries on our plates. She was pulling herself along on her tummy and it was SO CUTE!!! This girl could not sit up on her own when we got her and now she is just a little monkey. I think she takes so many naps because she is working all these muscles that she never has before. She started to get fussy and sleepy and her over-tiredness caught up to her. It caught up to me too, I was just so tired I thought I was going to fall asleep standing up.
This is an amazing experience, but I know we are going to be grateful to get home and sleep in our own beds and be done with paperwork!! It seems to be never-ending, but we are getting to the end of the road and Nadia will be an American. We got her Chinese passport in Nanchang and will finish up with her visa here.
